Rastetter admits guilt, amends financial disclosure form
Concession days before ethics hearing is just one more example in a long string of incidents of Rastetter only doing the right thing after he gets caught
Iowa Regent Bruce Rastetter amended a financial disclosure form with the state of Iowa yesterday (Aug. 20) in an attempt to deflect part of an ethics complaint we filed and that will come before the Iowa Ethics board this Thursday.
A key part of our ethics complaint against Bruce Rastetter is a potentially fraudulent and falsified financial disclosure form filed with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board on April 24, 2012 that lists Rastetter as a “farmer, self-employed” rather than cataloguing his extensive and lucrative investments. The amended form filed August 20 provides some additional details.
“Rastetter is trying to cover his tracks but in reality this is a shocking admission of guilt,” said Ross Grooters, a train engineer and CCI member from Pleasant Hill. “He knows he broke the law, and he’s trying to avoid accountability just days before his ethics hearing.”
“This is just the latest example in a long pattern of Rastetter making concessions at the last minute in an attempt to hide his mistakes and play damage control,” Grooters continued. “Is this the kind of person with a proven track record of bad judgments and poor decision making we want serving the public as a regent? Do we want a public servant in office who only does the right thing after he’s confronted with public pressure?”
Previous examples of Rastetter's pattern of making concessions at the last minute in an attempt to hide his mistakes and play damage control:
Rastetter disclosed his conflict of interest to the Iowa Board of Regents on June 17, 2011 three days after a front page Des Moines Register story outed his role in the land grab in Tanzania.
He recused himself completely from negotiating with Iowa State University on September 13, 2011, after he found out that a Dan Rathers Report expose on the land grab was in the works.
Emails during that time show that Rastetter was personally involved in day-to-day negotiations with ISU dean David Acker throughout May, June, and July 2011, months after his term on the Board of Regents began.In a letter dated August 20, 2012 written to the state’s ethics board by Paula Dierenfeld, Rastetter’s attorney, Rastetter says his original financial disclosure form was based on “statements filed by other public officials” and argues that Iowa disclosure law “is not clear.”But the financial disclosure form clearly states that all investment income “more than $1000” must be reported, something Rastetter objectively failed to do the first time.
“The ethics board’s alleged failure to enforce the law with other political appointees does not let Rastetter off the hook,” Grooters said. “It only proves that the ethics board needs to start doing their job, beginning with a full investigation into Rastetter’s long pattern of unethical behavior.”
Iowa CCI executive director Hugh Espey wrote in an August 1 “Iowa View” op-ed in the Des Moines Register that Rastetter’s concession on his financial disclosure form “will not change the fact that he was duty-bound to get it right the first time.”
Iowa CCI members will make their case to the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board during an ethics hearing Thursday at noon.
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